A Chockawhat?
by The Trinity Tree
Summary: The Belstone caravan get to grips with the greatest Crystal Chronicles mystery of all: never mind the source of the miasma, where are all the chocobos? C'mon SquareEnix, we're waiting! Oneshot.


I did this just for fun while waiting for a lift home from work this weekend. It's neither particularly hilarious nor long, but it amused me and it does explain an _extremely vital_ flaw in the Crystal Chronicals universe. You know what I'm talking about.

Featuring the ever ridiculous Belstone caravan :D

* * *

**A Choco-what?**

"I read a story once," Kronan announced.

"Congratulations," replied Esther drily.

The Lilty frowned in her direction before continuing, "I read a story once _about giant birds._"

"I'm sorry," the Clavat said. "Exactly how did that make what you said any more sensible?"

The two continued to bicker like siblings while Tag, the second Clavat and final member of the Belstone caravan , tugged gently on the reins to indicate to their papoamus they were going to stop. Noon had rolled by almost unnoticed two hours previously and Tag was starting to get hungry. Before him their towbeast gave a grunt of acknowledgement and aimed for the lush grass at the side of the road, dragging the caravan in his wake. On feeling the change of direction Esther and Kronan hopped out of the back of the cabin with cooking utensils crammed into their arms.

"You're cooking," Kronan declared to Tag, "You stopped."

"I cooked last night."

"You stopped," Kronan repeated, as if this reiteration somehow explained everything. While a grumbling Tag snatched unwillingly at the cooking pot and chopping board offered to him by Esther, Kronan plopped down cheerfully and began to build a fire out of the kindling available.

Esther frowned at him. "It'd be easier if we ate something cold."

"It's not proper food unless it's hot," Kronan insisted, provoking another groan from Tag.

As Tag rummaged in the food sack for anything edible – or at least not too far past its 'Kronan, don't eat _that_' date – Esther salvaged a strip of dried meat and, breaking it in half and giving the second (smaller) piece to Kronan, sat beside the Lilty. Meat was hardly her favourite food but beggars couldn't be choosers.

"Giant birds?" she asked, disguising her interest behind an air of amusement.

Kronan chewed the meat in dignified silence. Evidently he wouldn't tell her if she didn't believe him. Eventually, Esther caved, and heaved a sigh. "Alright. I want to hear the story. I'm sure you've yet another fascinating thing to impart to me that will broaden my humble horizons."

"And?" the Lilty inquired haughtily.

"And you're awesome and I'm not," Esther added with bad grace. The Lilty smiled, and the last of his snack vanished.

"Right, it was a little book that my da bought my baby brother from a travelling merchant."

Esther snorted. "Oh. A children's book. Riiiiight."

"So you're not interested?" Kronan asked, and she hastily held her hands up. "No, no! Keep going."

"In the book there was a story about a Clavat who drove around the world, and his cart was pulled along - "

"By a papoamus?" Esther asked.

Kronan swatted her. "_I'm telling the story! _And no, actually. It was the giant bird pulling it."

In the background, Tag cut his finger and swore loudly.

"The book didn't describe the bird though, so I always thought it looked like a big chicken."

"Had papoamuses not been invented then?" Esther asked incredulously. "We were using chickens to pull carts?"

"_Shuttup shuttup shuttup _so I asked my da about it, the bird, and he said they were real. And they were called chocobos. But no one's seen one in ages. They're _myffical._"

Esther chewed her lip. "A chocka-what?"

"Chocobo."

"Never heard of them."

Kronan drew himself up grandly, although his greatest height wasn't that much different to his normal height and he only just reached Esther's shoulder. "Well, I don't expect you would have because you're not educated."

"You said you'd never heard of them either!" Esther protested.

Tag's head appeared round the back of the caravan, where he was chopping vegetables on the back platform. "Can one of you fill the cooking pot with water and set it boiling?"

"You stopped!" Kronan yelled. "You cook!"

"Git!" Tag yelled back, and disappeared again. Esther toyed with a button on her satchel thoughtfully. "I wonder what these chocklebows look like."

"Chocobo," Kronan prompted, clearly pleased to be the one correcting Esther for a change. "And I told you. They look like big chickens."

"Huh," Esther muttered. She opened her bag and peered inside for inspiration or perhaps a piece of spare parchment she could scribble some ideas onto. After pulling out a number of things – a hunk of bronze ore, a striped apple (Kronan cheerfully swiped this), some chilly gel in a little flask – she finally discovered a tatty design for bronze gloves that Kronan had thrown away. Taking a stick of crumbly charcoal from the now merrily blazing fire, she sketched a chicken onto the blank side of the design.

After she'd finished, Kronan regarded it critically before pronouncing it terrible and adding a few extra scrawls, including a hat, a goofy smile, and some oversized talons to the feet.

"Kronan, chickens don't have giant claws. Or teeth!"

"Chocobos might. How come the hat was the most stupid thing I added and you didn't even mention it?"

"Shut up."

Esther did her best to rub the hat off the chicken but the charcoal only smeared right across the head, giving an attractive sooty look to the 'chocobo' that made it look like her grandfather, who smoked a pipe and was surrounded by a cloud of ash wherever he went. Then, fending off further attempts from her Lilty companion to improve her picture, she stared at it for a while.

She was roused from her reverie by the thump of a wooden plate onto the ground in front of her.

"What's this?" Kronan asked, disgusted. Tag beamed maliciously at him.

"You never said I had to cook something you'd like."

And with that the Clavat tucked eagerly into his own juicy fish steak and mashed gourd potato – leaving Esther and Kronan to share a charred lump of star carrot.

* * *

They stopped off at Marr's Pass the following day, and while Tag and Kronan hurried about improving and repairing their battle equipment Esther did some running of her own; she went to every house in the village and asked if anyone had ever heard of chocobos. When she explained they had been used to pull carts, she got so many odd looks that by the end her own face started to twist in sympathy. No one had ever heard of such a thing, although even she would be the first to admit that 'big chickens' was hardly a very good description to go on.

* * *

Three days later they defeated the Orc King at the Mines of Cathuriges, collecting their final drop of myrrh for the year. After a triumphant return home and a celebration that left Tag with a hangover and a love bite he had no recollection of receiving, the Belstone caravanners spent their only free two weeks of the year at home – peacefully, in the case of Tag and Esther. Kronan was the oldest of four rowdy children and as such his brief break was anything but.

Esther was the farmer's daughter, and though she had never had any real love for growing plants she was very fond of the two dozen chickens her family kept in a large coop at the house-ward end of their field. She let them out into the yard for a while, scattering feed and nudging would-be-escapees with her feet to keep them in check.

"Have you ever heard of chocobos?" she asked the chickens in that high-pitched voice many people adopt when speaking to animals. "What happened to all the chocobos, then? If no one's ever seen them?"

She was answered only by clucking of various types – content, irate, hungry and the ever present 'who is this idiot who talks to us in a baby voice?'. Sighing, she upended the basket so that the last of the grains fell onto the ground and slowly rounded the chickens back into their coop. Then, she trudged indoors.

In the coop the chickens milled happily – to a bird, glossy yellow in colour with big, bright blue eyes.

* * *

**End.**

While playing FF:CC the other day (Year 11, 3-player mode! Yessss we're so cool), my friend Chris asked why they'd invented papoamuses instead of sticking to the time honoured tradition of chocobos as beasts of transport. After some deliberation I have decided thusly; that, having found themselves in the FF:CC universe where perfectly serviceable papoamuses existed for cart-pulling purposes, chocobos evolved into cute pocket-sized versions and lived in coops.

I love Chocobo's Dungeon, and Chocobo. But not Shirma's voice actor. Definitely not her.

Thank you for reading! :)


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